I. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to semi-automated medication dispensers, particularly to medication dispensers suitable for dispensing multiple medications to multiple patients with minimal risk of error, pilferage, and contact with the medications.
II. Description of the Prior Art
Hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and the like typically must dispense multiple medications to multiple patients on ever-changing schedules. Insuring that the right patient receives the right amount of the right medication at the right time presents significant logistical problems to the personnel responsible for prescribing, dispensing, and administering the medications. Even when everything in the system works properly, the logistics and paperwork required to dispense all medications to a group of patients correctly can be very time-consuming, labor-intensive, and expensive.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for medications to be administered to the wrong patient, or to the right patient in the wrong amount or at the wrong time. Such mistakes can arise in many ways. A patient may be misidentified, or moved to a different bed. Busy nurses may neglect to cross-check patient identification numbers in all cases. The cups containing different patients' medications may inadvertently be switched. The potentially harmful consequences of incorrectly dispensing medications to patients requires no elaboration.
Compounding these already-difficult logistical problems is the fact that a clandestine demand exists for many prescription drugs, requiring that appropriate security measures be taken to minimize the risk of theft.
In addition to the foregoing difficulties, it is essential that patients receive their medication without contamination from other sources. This is especially so in the case of patients who have hypersensitive reactions to certain chemicals. The primary sources of contamination are most often from the handling of the medication by the health care provider or the patient. For example, if the attending nurse has handled a previous medication for another patient, trace amounts of that drug may contaminate the medication for the next patient if also touched by the nurse. However, the medication administration systems used by most medical institutions do not ensure that the medication remains untouched before being consumed by the patient.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,848,112 discloses magnetically coded identification tags for correlating the identity of a patient to the patient's prescriptions, samples, and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,954 discloses a medication dispensing system for use with a single patient, in which all medications to be dispensed at a particular time for that patient are manually loaded into a particular compartment of the device, and the device allows access to each compartment at the appropriate time.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,221 discloses a drug dispenser with a monitor such as an optical sensor to detect when a dose of the drug has been dispensed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,928 discloses a medication cart with an on-board computer system in which unsecured medications are stored in conventional cabinet cubicles; and in which secured narcotics are either stored in a single-dose, automatic dispenser apparatus requiring special packaging for dispensing doses of the narcotics, or are stored in a locked conventional cubical.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,917,045 discloses an automatic drug dispensing apparatus which dispenses drugs from cartridges, each of which holds a plurality of individual drug dosages.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,847,764 discloses a system for dispensing medications in a health care institution in which a central computer system controls a plurality of remote medication dispensers.
Other patents cited during the prosecution of my copending application Ser. No. 08/206,877 include the following: U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,684,783; 3,334,784; 3,467,277; 3,892,489; 4,018,358; 4,141,461; 4,267,942; 4,546,901; 4,473,884; 4,655,026; 4,664,289; 4,674,651; 4,674,652; 4,733,362; 4,785,969; 4,832,229; 4,853,521; 4,911,327; and 4,939,705.
There is a continuing, untilled need for a multi-patient, multi-medication, semi-automated medication dispenser that can correctly dispense the correct medications to the correct patients at the correct times in the correct dosages, in any sequence of patients that is convenient, in a manner that is cost-efficient, that reduces the amount of human labor required, that minimizes the risk of error, that does not require any special packaging for pills dispensed, that is resistant to pilferage, and that eliminates the need to touch the medication.
A novel, semi-automated medication dispenser has been invented that greatly simplifies the logistics of correctly dispensing multiple medications to multiple patients in the correct dosages at the correct times, in a manner that is cost-efficient and labor-efficient, that greatly reduces the probability of errors, and that inhibits pilferage. The novel dispenser can be loaded with many days' worth of medication (e.g., 30 days) at one time, and requires no special packaging for the medications.
The novel dispenser is controlled by a computer. Patient information and physician orders are entered into the computer's memory. Medications needed by all the patients in a ward are loaded into individual compartments, for example by a pharmacist. Many days' worth of medication may often be loaded at once.
After the medications are loaded into the dispenser, access to the individual compartments is controlled by the computer. When a proper password is entered--for example by the dispensing nurse--followed by identifying information for a particular patient, the computer allows access to only those compartments containing medications that are appropriate for the individual patient at that time. A variety of suction tubes may be employed to physically retrieve the desired medication. In many cases, the computer controls the dosage of the medication being dispensed as well, by controlling the number of pills dispensed. Thus, each patient receives all appropriate medications, and only the appropriate medications. The computer also simultaneously makes a record of the medications administered to each patient. In the entire process, human hands need never touch the tablets or capsules being dispensed to the patient.